BAKU, AZERBAIJAN - The government of this Caucasian
republic has hired a force of more than 1,000 Afghan mujaheddin fighters
to buttress its sagging army, introducing a volatile new element to
the five-year Azerbaijani-Armenian war on the former Soviet Union's
southern rim.
[ ]As a sign of his tenuous situation, Aliyev, a former Communist
Party boss, also has aggressively sought direct military support from
the United States, Iran and Turkey, according to several Western diplomats.
Aliyev's face-to-face appeal last week to U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan
Richard Miles was rebuffed, according to Western sources, and the forces
sent by Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar so far have been unable
to help the Azerbaijani army repel a surging ethnic Armenian offensive.

"We estimate that it would take two days for
the Armenians to march straight into Baku," a Western diplomat
said last week. "They would be almost unopposed. This city is defenseless."

Western analysts do not expect the Armenians to push
as far as Baku. However, the relentless Armenian advance, in which a
large swath of southwestern Azerbaijan bordering Iran was seized and
burned just two weeks ago, seems on the verge of plunging Baku into
a new political crisis, diplomats said. Five Baku governments have fallen
in the last two years over the war, and Aliyev, who came to power in
June in a military coup, "is in real trouble," one Western
diplomat said.

"Aliyev's time is up," the diplomat said.
"He needs to do something radical. He needs Turkish, Iranian, somebody's
backing."

Aliyev's move comes at a propitious moment for Azerbaijan,
which is about to become one of the former Soviet Union's wealthiest
republics. Azerbaijan is soon to receive the first $250 million of an
estimated $94 billion, 35-year windfall from its rich offshore oil fields.
The signing bonus, to be paid by an eight-company Western oil consortium,
would help pull Azerbaijan back from the verge of economic collapse.
But, diplomats say, the money may do little to stave off political collapse
if Aliyev is unable to improve Azerbaijan's performance on the battlefield.

The deployment of Afghan forces to save a former Soviet
republic is ironic since many historians believe that Moscow's 1989
withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan marked the start of the Soviet
Union's decline that ended with the superpower's December 1991 collapse.

The Afghan soldiers, identifiable by their trademark
round, flat woolen caps and shin-length cotton robes, started arriving
in August, soon after a visit to Afghanistan by Azerbaijani Deputy Interior
Minister Roshan Jivadov, the diplomats said. Hekmatyar, the Afghan prime
minister, approved the deployment for an undisclosed sum, the diplomats
said. Azerbaijan and Afghanistan are both Muslim nations, while Armenia
is largely Christian.

The Afghan force, which diplomats estimate at between
1,000 and 1,500 men, is part of the Iran-backed mujaheddin faction called
Hezb-i-Wahdat, which is allied with Hekmaytar. Although Tehran finances
and influences the party, it is unclear what role, if any, Iran played
in the deployment in Azerbaijan, diplomats said.

The Afghans' first major action came two weeks ago
when Baku launched a surprise offensive in the Zangelan region, near
Iran. A force of ethnic Armenians immediately repulsed the Azerbaijani
assault, which the Afghans either spearheaded or helped lead, diplomats
said, and then the Armenians pushed out the local population of some
60,000 Azerbaijanis.

The Azerbaijani force, including the Afghans, appear
to have fled when the counteroffensive began, diplomats said.

The Afghan presence is producing concern among some
diplomats, who cited unconfirmed reports of tension between some mujaheddin
fighters and members of the local population. An estimated 1 million
Afghans and 13,000 Soviets died during the decade-long Soviet army presence
in Afghanistan.

"It's a very dangerous thing to bring in the
Afghans," said a senior Western diplomat. "They have very
mixed feelings. Many of them had relatives killed by these very same
people {former Soviets}."

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH November 10, 1993, Wednesday

Bitter Afghanistan
Struggle Helps Fuel Asian Conflicts

By Ahmed Rashid in Lahore

INSTABILITY caused by the Afghan conflict is spreading
through Asia, from India to Iran and north into China and Central Asia.
In the past eight days, 200 civilians have died in heavy artillery bombardments
as the Afghan Prime Minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, battles for power
with President Burhanuddin Rabbani and his former defence minister,
Ahmed Shah Massoud. Hundreds of wounded face acute shortages of food
and water and thousands are trying to flee the fighting.

About 50,000 Afghans have been killed since the Mujahideen
captured Kabul, the capital, in April 1992. It is badly damaged and
has no running water, electricity or medical facilities. In the latest
bout of fighting, Mr Hekmatyar's forces are trying to consolidate their
grip on territory around the town of Taqab, 50 miles north-east of Kabul,
so they can attack Kabul, where Mr Rabbani is based. Mr Rabbani and
Mr Massoud are trying to defend Taqab and regain control of the Hekmatyar-dominated
city of Sarobi, on the main road to Pakistan.

There are bitter ethnic differences between the opposing
forces. Mr Hekmatyar is a Pathan and is trying to oust his rivals, who
are Tajiks, from any influence in the Pathan belt, which runs along
the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The West has largely ignored the civil war in Afghanistan,
with serious consequences. Mujahideen have been hiring themselves out
as mercenaries to the highest foreign bidder. Hundreds of fundamentalist
Mujahideen are fighting for the Muslim forces in Bosnia and Azerbaijan
has just hired 1,000 to help in its war with Armenia. Afghans have been
killed by Indian troops in Kashmir, where Mujahideen are helping Kashmiri
militants. Afghans have also been fighting in the former Soviet republic
of Tajikistan and have been assisting Islamic militants in Uzbekistan
and in Xinjiang, the Muslim region of western China.

Increasingly desperate Azerbaijan, facing a new drive
by Armenian separatists based in this mountain city, has deployed little-trained
teenage recruits to help halt the upheaval it has suffered since the
Soviet Union's collapse two years ago, according to Western diplomats.

The recruits, some reportedly as young as 16, are
part of an unconventional army that over time has included Afghan mercenaries
and U.S., Iranian, Russian and Turkish trainers.

The force appears so far to have helped hold back
the Armenians' 10-day-old offensive, but Azerbaijan has suffered heavy
fatalities - "a few hundred" dead, one diplomat said - and
neutral observers predict that the Armenians, who hold one-fifth of
Azerbaijan, eventually will succeed in winning independence for the
mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh - an Armenian-populated enclave
located within Azerbaijan.

"You can't put together any real army to fight
the Armenians. There is a lack of determination in the people fighting,
a disarray in the ranks," said a Western diplomat in Baku, the
capital of Azerbaijan. "... This country is capable of gaining
and holding ground only temporarily. If the Armenians don't retake territory
immediately, it is only for political reasons, not because they cannot."
The war waged by the Christian Armenians seeking independence from this
oil-rich, predominantly Muslim nation has been by far the gravest in
the former Soviet Union. Starting before the Soviet collapse made Armenia
and Azerbaijan independent nations, the six-year war has spread throughout
western Azerbaijan, creating 1 million internal refugees - one-seventh
of the republic's population - and killing more than 15,000 people on
both sides.

With winter now over and warm weather creating better
fighting conditions, separatist leader Robert Kocharian, interviewed
last week in Stepanakert, capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, would say only
that the offensive's "first aim is to inflict losses on the enemy."
But Western and local analysts in Yerevan, capital of neighboring Armenia,
said Kocharian seemed to be pushing toward the strategic Azerbaijani
city of Yevlakh.

If the separatists capture Yevlakh, they would control
the vital main road to Georgia, as well as Azerbaijan's oil export pipeline
to the port of Batumi, and, diplomats say, seriously undermine Azerbaijan's
President Gaidar Aliyev.

Five governments already have fallen, each after serious
Azerbaijani battlefield losses. In recent days, Aliyev has tried to
rally his people, decrying the massive desertions his fledgling army
has suffered as casualties have mounted.

The war also has helped stall Western commercial efforts,
including a long campaign by U.S., British and other oil companies to
develop Azerbaijan's offshore fields. The government has refused to
sign the deal -- said ultimately to be worth $ 118 billion - in what
diplomats believe is an attempt to secure Western help in ending the
war.

Azerbaijan's mobilization of teenage recruits is the
latest indication of growing desperation in Baku as it becomes clearer
that it cannot win the war by itself.

In 1992, a Western diplomat said, the republic hired
a group of American men who wore "big cowboy hats and big cowboy
boots" as military trainers for its army. Some of the men, the
diplomat said, are still in the country.

Last year, Azerbaijan hired more than 1,000 guerrilla
fighters from Afghanistan's radical prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Meanwhile, Turkey and Iran supplied trainers, and the republic also
was aided by 200 Russian officers who taught basic tactics to Azerbaijani
soldiers last November in the northwest city of Barda, according to
Azerbaijani officers.

When none of this worked, the republic began press-ganging
young men in December and throwing them at the Armenian forces in a
strategy similar to the "human waves" used by Iran against
Iraq during their 1980-88 war. According to conservative Western estimates,
Azerbaijan lost at least 4,000 dead in its two-month offensive - more
fatalities than in the previous two years of fighting.

The hillside Martyrs' Cemetery in Baku illustrates
the tremendous cost of Azerbaijan's battlefield forays. Rows of shrines
decorated with red, pink and white carnations line the cemetery, where
fresh concrete slabs attest to the daily interring of new war victims.
Black-and-white photographs of the dead are attached to tarred iron
frames that stand like tombstones behind each shrine.

The ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, with a population
of 150,000 among Azerbaijan's 7.3 million, also have suffered dearly
in the war.

In fact, the nine-hour drive from Stepanakert to Yerevan
provides evidence that Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenians also have relied
on outside help. These have included Russian mercenaries, but most of
the assistance comes from the separatists' patrons in Armenia. Armenia
is providing increased covert battlefield support, though it officially
denies supplying military aid.

On the shoulder of the main road outside Yerevan last
week, five busloads of new Armenian recruits, many of them drunk and
clearly unfit, rested before heading out to an assignment. In separate
interviews, about a dozen of the men said they were bound for Horadis,
a city in southwestern Azerbaijan on the Iranian border where Armenian
separatists are trying to uproot a last local redoubt of Azerbaijani
militiamen.

One of the men, in his twenties and obviously intoxicated,
said he had been drafted into the Armenian army only five days before.
"We're going to fight," he said.

Though Western-led peace efforts continue, stubbornness
on both sides seems to be blocking a political settlement to the war.
In Baku, there appears to be no stomach to grant independence to the
ethnic Armenians, who talk of accepting nothing less than sovereignty
for their kidney-shaped enclave.

Meanwhile, hate has taken deep root, and youths such
as Husseinglu Musayiv, 17, visiting the grave of his dead soldier brother
at Baku's cemetery recently, give the impression that they must keep
on fighting.

"I'll have to avenge my brother's blood,"
Musayiv said.

May 1, 1994 Sunday,

The Plain Dealer

By B.J. Cutler

Sometimes David does defeat Goliath. It first happened,
of course, in the Old Testament narrative about the second king of Israel
slaying the Philistine giant.

And in the course of history small peoples have at
times managed to defeat larger ones: a few Swiss cantons wresting liberty
from Habsburg Austria in the 14th century; 16th century Dutchmen driving
superpower Spain from the Low Countries; modern Israel, at birth, repulsing
the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in
1948. David vs. Goliath is repeating itself in the Caucasus Mountains.
There, a handful of Christian Armenians in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh
seem likely to win their freedom from Muslim Azerbaijan.

On paper, it should be easy for the Muslims. When
the Karabakh Armenians voted to secede from Azerbaijan in 1988, they
numbered 180,000. Emigration and death have reduced them to 120,000
now - facing 7 million Azeris.

Also, Azerbaijan is rich in oil, allowing it to buy
arms from Turkey, China, Israel and Russia (which sells to both sides).
Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, has hired mercenaries from Afghanistan and
trainers from Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States, the last ones
freelancers.

When the war erupted six years ago, the Azerbaijan
armed forces rained shells on Stepanakert, the enclave's capital, and
other towns. The ethnic Armenians had two choices, to die or to push
the Azeris out of artillery range.

In savage fighting they drove the Azeris back. In
1992, they cut a corridor through Azeri lines to Armenia proper, whose
3.5 million citizens support their Karabakh brethren. Food, weapons
and conscripts come in from Armenia. Striving to keep a straight face,
the government in Yerevan denies this.

Last year, the Karabakh fighters inflicted a series
of defeats on Azerbaijan, occupying more than a tenth of that former
Soviet republic's territory and causing regime after regime in Baku
to fall.

The current Azeri leader is a sinister former KGB
general named Aliyev. His first name is Gaidar when he wants to sound
Russian and Haidar when he wishes to seem Islamic. A reactionary, he
was fired from the Soviet Politburo by Mikhail Gorbachev.

With the ruthlessness of an old KGB man, Aliyev has
been press-ganging teenagers into his army, giving them a week's training
and throwing them in human-wave attacks against veteran Armenian troops.
The result: slaughter of thousands since Aliyev's December "offensive."

The world thinks of Armenians as victims, largely
because of their genocide at the hands of the Turks in 1915. Karabakh
natives defended their mountain redoubts against Turks and Azeris over
the centuries and served with distinction in czarist and Soviet armies.

Today they are skilled at maneuver, luring Azeris
into lethal ambushes and capturing costly foreign weaponry. Their standard
wisecrack is: "We are very grateful to Gaidar Aliyev because he's
funding two armies at once."

They believe if they can beat the Azeris a few more
times on the battlefield, Aliyev will let them go free.

The Armenians should prevail in their struggle since
the Azerbaijan hardly needs Karabakh and demoralized Azeri draftees
see little reason to die for the place. By contrast, the Karabakh forces
know their women and children are only a few miles behind the lines
and will die if their men fail them.

Remarkable what David can do with his back to the
wall.

MOSCOW NEWS N 23June 5-12, 1994

Afghan "Wild Goose"
in a Karabakh Cage

"Afghan leadership disapproves the participation
of Afghan citizens in military activities in Nagorno Karabakh and supports
peaceful resolution of this conflict", says the letter of President
of Afghanistan Burnahuddin Rabbani to the Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrossian.

According to the information of the Nagorno Karabakh
State Department for National Security (SDNS), presently about 2500
Afghan mojahedins are fighting from Azerbaijan's side. Most of them
are deployed near the Southern front near the Iranian border.

Bakhtiyar Verballah Vaberzaid is a resident of the
Afghan town of Mazar-e-Sharif. Bahtiyar is twenty years old, eight of
which he has been fighting in the General Adbul-Rashid Dustum's army,
who is in opposition to Rabbani. Coming here via Iran as one of Afghan
mojahedins in Azerbaijan, he has under his command an element consisting
of 20 people. On April 22, this year he was wounded and taken prisoner
by Armenians in the South -Eastern Fizuly direction of the Karabakh
front. He underwent a surgical operation in Stepanakert as result of
which he lost his right eye.

The Moscow News correspondents met with Bakhtiyar
Vaberzaid in the NKR SDNS cell. Here the "Wild Goose" is awaiting
his fate and praying five times a day - Mohammedan prayer.

Telling about himself with colourful Eastern expressions,
he avoided talking about his participation in this war as in a holy
war - Jihad - against the Christians -"giavours". Bakhtiyar
wanted to earn some money in Azerbaijan - he has no father and lives
with his mother and sister - and they are short of money. Azerbaijani
headquarters promised to pay up to $5000 after the contract expires.
According to Bakhtiyar, he fought along with up to 250 mojahedins in
Goradiz, and during the first months they were paid around 1000 manats
(a little more than one US dollar). For this period the mercenaries
were to justify their employers' hopes and earn a right for currency.
Mojahedins were mostly used in infantry and assault detachments, as
most of the Afghans have good military experience of fighting in mountainous
areas and can use many types of shooting weapons.

Majority of Azerbaijani soldiers did not undergo even
a preliminary training, that is why they are quite unprepared and mojahedins
are counted on. Their living conditions and food are better than those
of Azerbaijani soldiers and they spend their vacations in Baku or Afghanistan.
Bakhtiyar Vaberzaid said that the Afghans were living apart, as many
Azerbaijanis breach Sharia laws. However, Azerbaijani soldiers maintain
contacts with the Afghans because of drugs brought by mercenaries from
Afghanistan. The connecting link between the mojahedins and Azerbaijani
headquarters is an Afghan Vaidallah, who organizes and coordinates the
work with mojahedins in Baku. He visited also Goradiz and Bahtiyar learnt
from him that the Azerbaijani authorities were pleased with the Afghans
and interested in the arrival of new ones and were prepared to spend
a significant sums on that.

When correspondents asked Bakhtiyar whether the "Russian
Afghans", who had once fought in Afghanistan, were fighting from
Azerbaijani side, he answered that hadn't seen them personally but heard
from some friends that there were "shouravis" on the Azerbaijani
side and they were in strained relations with the mojahedins.

Calling to witness Allah, Bakhtiyar states that he
had been wounded in the very first battle - before killing anyone, and
hopes to be exchanged or released.

COMBAT AND SURVIVAL
Volume 11, Issue 5 August 1999

Nagorno Karabakh

Exclusive Report from Paul Harris in Stepanakert

The frontline between the armies of Azerbaijan and
the breakaway state of Nagorno-Karabakh has an air of permanence. The
Karabakhi trenches, bunkers and earthworks are well dug and reinforced
with concrete posts, wooden palings and empty ammunition boxes. A network
of wire fences and minefields separate the two armies who watch each
other warily through binoculars across a kilometer of No Man's Land.
There are exchanges of sniper fire almost daily and large quantities
of men and material have been committed to holding this line. Behind
the lines of infantry trenches, a deep tank ditch has been excavated.
Colonel Hakoupian tells me, `This is our anti-tank defense, It is 179
kilometers long and stretches all the way from the Iranian border to
Armenia.' These formidable front line defenses, constructed since 1994,
stretch along the entire eastern flank of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh
and are home to arguably the most committed troops in the region.

It is April 1999. There is scant sympathy here in
the southern Caucasus for the cause of Kosovo's Albanians in flight.
In his office overlooking the main square of Stepanakert, capital of
self-declared, micro-state of Nagorno-Karabakh, Prime Minister Jirayr
Pogossian has a clear view from his mountain republic. `What Kosovo
shows is how the will of the people will determine its future. The Kosovo
people were not ready to fight for their own land. Here, the Karabakhi
people stayed and we fought.' Now for a bit of necessary history. Nagorno-Karabakh
is the mouse that roared and -against all the odds - finally gained
its freedom in 1994 after a bitter two and a half year war with the
state Azerbaijan. The Karabakhis - ethnic Armenians and firm Christians
- trace their roots in their mountain fastness back for more than two
millenia in a land they call Artsakh. In the wake of the 1917 Russian
Revolution, the Revolutionary Committee of Azerbaijan recognized Nagorno-Karabakh
(translates as mountainous black garden) as part of Christian Armenia
in December 1920. However, within the year, it was arbitrarily from
Armenia by Moscow and, two years later, accorded the status of an autonomous
region within Muslim Azerbaijan. A referendum on independence held on
December 10, 1991, followed the break up of the Soviet Union and 98%
of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to split from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani
forces commenced an artillery attack on the capital, Stepanakert, that
day and war ensued, which eventually ended with a ceasefire in May 1994.
Around 22,000 Karabakhis and an unknown number of Azerbaijanis died
in the conflict.

The front line has an air of permanence about it and
trenches are well-constructed This was truly the struggle of David against
Goliath as the tiny 4,000 square kilometer region of just 150,000 people
was pitched against the might of Azerbaijan with a population of seven
million. Incredibly, after three years of war, N-K, having initially
lost almost half its territory to the numerically superior Azerbaijani
forces, drove them out of almost all of its own land, drove a corridor
through Azerbaijan to connect the tiny country to ally Armenia and set
up a protective buffer zone against any further attack. How a mountain-based
guerilla army of 40,000 men - and a few women - with hunting rifles,
supplemented by captured weapons, defeated forces armed with MIG fighters,
attack helicopters and Grad rocket batteries is an extraordinary story
of tactics and courage. It was a largely untold story. As N-K launched
its bid for freedom, Yugoslavia broke up and the attention of the Western
media was focused on the Balkans rather than the Caucasus. Stepanakert
was daily targeted by up to 400 missiles and suffered largely unheard
as Sarajevo held the world in thrall. During the war, the Azerbaijanis
were initially supported by Russian 4th Army troops, Turkish trainers
and latterly, by Afghani Mujahadin, who referred insultingly to the
fighters of Karabakh as `fedayeen': fighters lately come down from the
mountains to fight for towns and villages. But this was a slur born
from fear. One mujahadin mercenary admitted at the time, `You never
realize where the enemy is firing from. Literally from four sides at
once. No, it's not like Afghanistan. It's Karabakh.' A number of factors
brought victory for the Karabakhis: commitment and determination in
fighting for their own land; intimate knowledge of the territory they
were defending; the support of the Armenians in terms of equipment supply
and assistance with taking of a linking corridor to Armenia; capture
of significant quantities of arms and munitions from the Azerbaijan
forces. At the same time, there is considerable evidence that the Azerbaijani
forces were insufficiently motivated and, indeed, utilized their own
unwilling minorities - like the Kurds - in the front lines. The main
battles were for the dominating heights where the Azerbaijanis based
rockets and artillery. One of the turning points in the war came on
May 8, 1992, when the Karabakhis took the town of Shushi, which looked
down on the capital Stepanakert and where Grad missile batteries were
based: some days as many as 400 missiles rained down on the capital
restricting life to an underground existence in the cellars. In the
process the Karabakhis lost less than twenty men from their relatively
small force, having skillfully managed to create the impression that
the assault was made up of a vast number of men and tanks. They left
an escape route open for the Azerbaijani forces and, overnight, they
all fled. When the Karabakhis took Hodjaly, they gained access to the
airport, relieving the siege. Although fixed wing aircraft were often
unable to use it, being obliged to adopt the steep, spiralling descent
known as the Khe San approach, skillful helicopter pilots flying Mi-8s
maintained a link with the Armenian capital. During the war, one Yak-40
and three Mi-8 helicopters were shot down by the Azerbaijanis; the Karabakhis
took out more than twenty Migs and helicopters plus - mistakenly - an
Iranian Hercules C-130 routed over Stepanakert in March 1994.

The deserted town of Agdam, now inside the buffer
zone, is almost totally devasted, but the Christian Karabakhis have
been particularly careful to preserve the Muslim mosque with its elaborate
wall mosaics. Once the rocket and artillery emplacements were taken
out, the Karabakhi fighters attacked infantry and armour classic guerilla
tactics. By the beginning of 1994, they had not only liberated all of
their own territory, apart from the northern Shaumian district which
was lost, but they went on to occupy 9% of the territory of Azerbaijan
as a buffer zone. They have resolutely refused to give up this buffer
zone. As one of the leaders of N-K, Zorri Balayan, says, `If we gave
this back, then the war would begin again the next day.' There is no
peace today in N-K: just an uneasy ceasefire. Military preparation is
key to the survival of the Republic of N-K. The origins of the army
lie in the partisans who operated in the country during the late 1980s
and the year 1990 as the Azerbaijanis started to clear Karabakhi villages
in what has now become known as ethnic cleansing. They carried out more
than 200 operations, blowing up bridges, sections of rail track and
ambushing Azeri columns carrying munitions into the area. According
to Balayan, `Almost every one [of the operations] took place in answer
to a provocation by the Azerbaijani leadership or the commandant's office
of the district under military rule.' Today, the standing army of Nagorno
Karabakh - the NKR - is probably between 15,000 and 20,000 strong. Every
young man of eighteen years must serve two years in the army as a conscript
and only students in full time study can defer the obligation. There
is an unspecified number of volunteers who turn up for duty every day
and return home at night. And then there are the professional soldiers
who sign up for twenty years service. The only grounds for breaking
the 20 year contract are health failure. All the professional soldiers
at the moment are veterans of the war with Azerbaijan whose skills have
been forged in battle. In addition, during the time of tension which
would presage another conflict, the size of the army could be almost
doubled virtually overnight. Without the benefit of command and control
functions, which the NKR has today, the `asphalt fedayeen' fielded around
40,000 fighters during the war with Azerbaijan. Conscripts go to the
Defense Ministry Training Division at Ivanovka, ten minutes drive from
the capital. Training of conscripts is based on methodology of the old
Soviet Army. There is much emphasis on discipline and adherence to a
strictly enforced daily routine. Training and duties between reveille
at 0600 and lights out at 2200 are precisely laid down in the schedule
posted on the dormitory notice board, e.g. cleaning of personal AK-74
from 1610-1700 hours. Instructions and orders are all posted in Russian
and most of the textbooks are still in Russian. Much of the time in
the first three months is spent on establishing the regime and on basic
training. Dormitories are meticulously maintained as are the rose gardens
outside.

Basic training includes care and use of uniform, drill,
training in the use of the standard infantry weapon AK-74, first aid,
close quarters combat and, unusually, learning to throw a knife to kill.
Badges and many items of equipment still bear the insignia of the old
Soviet army but are gradually being changed. Prime Minister Jirair Poghossian
told me that uniforms are currently supplied by Armenia but that very
shortly N-K will open its own military uniform factory. After three
months, conscripts identified as being particularly able are selected
for more specialized training. The commander of the training center
says that `within the first two weeks we can assess the abilities of
the conscripts.' At six months, route marches enter the training schedule
starting with 5 km marches carrying 30 kgs of gear. After six months,
those who are particularly keen and able can elect to go to military
training college with a view to becoming professional soldiers. It seems
that the NKR training is a mixture of the traditional - as practiced
in the old Soviet Union - and guerilla skills. The command structure
is said to be based on that of the Armenian Army, with which the NKR
has close links. More promising soldiers go to Armenia for training
at the military academy in Yerevan and there are Armenian `observers'
within the NKR. There are fairly frequent joint training exercises involving
the Armenian army and the NKR. There are no foreign trainers in the
country.

Women are admitted to the NKR but are restricted to
work in areas like administration and medical services. The commander
of the training center says this is not gender discrimination. `Men
are simply better at fighting than women.' The NKR says it has `special
forces' although not organized as a specific unit - more a loosely knit
group of particularly talented fighters which can be pulled together
on an ad hoc basis. In the years since the 1994 ceasefire, N-K has lived
in a bizarre and quite unique state of limbo. A self- declared independent
republic, it remains unrecognized by any other country in the international
community - unrecognized, officially that is, by even Armenia which,
nevertheless, harbors in its capital Yerevan offices guarded by soldiers
of N-K behind the nameplate of The Permanent Representation of the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic in the Republic of Armenia. The Karabakhis have steadily developed
the apparatus of statehood: government ministries scattered around Stepanakert
with neat nameplates in English, Russian and Armenian; passports and
entry visas; a parliament with 33 democratically elected representatives;
and there is even a Miss Artsakh beauty competition - bathing costumes
and all - every April in the Palace of Youth. It seems the only thing
in the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh does not have is a national airline.
The last passenger plane to fly into Stepanakert airport was shot down
by the Azerbaijanis. The odd low flying helicopter gets through with
skillful flying - I got in on the Armenian President's Mi-8 helicopter
- but the only connection with the outside world for the inhabitants,
or most visitors, is a seven hour road journey through spectacular mountains
and down into the so-called Lachin Corridor.

There is the 10km wide corridor driven through Azerbaijani
territory by the Karabakhis with the support of the Armenian military.
This is the only vital lifeline to the outside world which winds its
way up and down mountainous inclines through devastated villages and
farms. All supplies from the outside world come through the corridor
- and most of the trucks on the road at the moment bear the number plates
and camouflage of the army of N-K. It is no secret that the military
establishments of the two neighbors are working closely together. It
is also clear that the material of the Karabakhi military is drawn from,
or at least through, Armenia in these transporter trucks heavily laden
on their axles and crawling through the mountains with weapons and munitions.
A military commander observed to me that `when something happens in
the Balkans there's always trouble down here.' Like the Balkans, the
Caucasus are a nexus where blood, faith and belonging come together.
As Kosovo burns, the cauldron of the Caucasus boils.

The 'Afghan Alumni'
Terrorism:
Islamic Militants Against the Rest of the World

By Shaul Shay and Yoram Schweitzer

In the summer of 1993, Professor Samuel Huntington,
a lecturer in international relations at Harvard University, published
an article entitled "The Clash of Civilizations", which caused
a stir within the international academic community. Three years later,
Professor Huntington published a book of the same name, in which he
argues that the root of global conflict at the turn of the century is
neither ideological nor economic, but primarily cultural.

Item 49 - Azerbaijan

Following the defeats suffered by the Azeri (Muslim)
forces in their war with the Armenians (Christians) over control of
the Nagorny Karabakh region, Azerbaijan turned to Afghanistan in August
1993 for military aid. Afghanistan responded by sending 1,000 mojahedeens
warriors to help the Azeris. In October 1993, the Afghan mojahedeens
launched a surprise attack against the Armenian forces in the region
of Zangelan (near the Iranian border), and even gained ground, before
being repulsed by the Armenian forces. As far as we know, these mojahedeens
forces remained in Azerbaijan where they continue to help the Azeris
in their struggle against the Armenians

Patterns of Global Terrorism 1999
Azerbaijan

Although Azerbaijan did not face a serious threat
from international terrorism, it served as a logistic hub for international
mojahedeens with ties to terrorist groups, some of whom supported the
Chechen insurgency in Russia. [ ]

But 2000 report says that...
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan took strong steps to curb the international
logistics networks that support the fighters in Chechnya, to include
closing international Islamic relief organizations believed to assist
militants in Chechnya, strengthening border controls with Russia, and
arresting and extraditing suspected mojahedeens supporters. There has
been good cooperation on counterterrorism cases between the Government
of Azerbaijan and U.S. law enforcement. In mid-September, Azerbaijani
police arrested seven Dagestani men under suspicion of working with
the mojahedeens and extradited them to Russia. The government has cooperated
closely and effectively with the United States on antiterrorism issues,
and a program of antiterrorism assistance has been initiated. Azerbaijan
intends to join the CIS Counterterrorism Center.

Azerbaijan and Russia signed a border agreement extension
in early June to limit the flow of arms and militants across the borders.

In early October, the Supreme Court in Baku found
13 members of Jayshullah, an indigenous terrorist group who may have
had plans to attack the U.S. Embassy, guilty of committing terrorist
actions. The court sentenced them to prison terms ranging from eight
years to life.

In March 1994, Steve Levine wrote in the Financial
Times: "With his army weakened by desertions, Mr Aliyev sent an
aide last August to Afghanistan to 'borrow' some of that country's mojahedeens
rebels. More than 1,000 Afghans came to Azerbaijan and faced their first
test in October, when Mr Aliyev launched his first offensive. The surprise
attack, in the southwestern Zangelan region near Iran, was spearheaded
by the Afghans. They advanced a few kilometers, before they and the
Azeris fled from an Armenian counterattack."